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Trade chatter is old hat to the Raptors

As we enter the final few days of misinformation, rumour and innuendo around the NBA trade deadline – the same kind of stuff we’re going to go through in June around the NBA draft – Dwane brought up an interesting point when we were talking after practice last night.

These guys have gone through that kind of stuff already this season, how could the next 48 hours be a distraction?

“It’s something I think our guys have done an excellent job of handling, not only this deadline, but earlier when there was a lot of rumours and things going around. Guys handled it perfectly, and all we can do is be up front and open with guys and they understand it.”

They did indeed.

Even Masai, when we were talking last week, admitted he was prepared to go either way after the Rudy Gay trade and a lot of people figured there were many more moves to come and there were some pins and needles around the team.

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Would Lowry be traded? Was DeMar safe? The players heard it, they knew it was out there and they played through it pretty well.

Remember how well Lowry handled the Knicks stuff early the year? Like a pro and with no impact on his play whatsoever.

Sure, there was some gallows humour last night – a couple of “hey, you’re still here?” comments, Dwane told us – but this group seems quite able to forget all that outside stuff.

And it has to help that the prevalent feeling around the league is that Masai won’t do a thing of substance this week even though he will definitely listen to whoever calls. Having that relative sense of calm over the team has to make this week easy.

I’m sure you will have seen lists of players expected to be traded, teams that are expected to be busy and I wish I had the time or the discipline to save them all to look back at them Friday and chuckle.

Trade chatter and rumour are old hat to this team, it’s been around since before the season began; this week is just another week.

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How many times has this happened to you?

They send you to what looks like the shortest line at airport security and all’s looking good.

The 20-something dude three people ahead of you takes off his shoes and belt, pulls out his laptop and we’re good to go.

He wanders through the X-ray machine and it goes off like he’s wearing a Semtex shirt and he comes out.

“Any metal, coins, keys, in your pocket?”

“Oh yeah,” he says, dumping about $140 worth of coins in a bin.

By this time, a guy who was six behind you in the original line and got sent to another security station is tying his shoes on the other side of security.

Back to the machine my guy goes.

Bells and whistle alarms again.

“Got cellphone in your pocket?”

“Oh, right. Yep.”

Now, someone who parked after you’d already picked up your boarding pass is in the lounge having toast and Earl Grey tea.

Once more into the breach.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

(Now, I’m about to kill the guy).

More coins out and he finally makes it through and it’s not age or deadlines or diminished skill that’s going to drive me out of this gig, it’s Idiot Travellers.

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Yes, if I can remember how to set it up and run it (and I have that knowledge), we’ll be back with an IGBT just before 7 p.m. tonight.

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Okay as tired as I am about any group of fans being referred to as a “nation” (and that will be forever banned When I Rule The World), I am more tired of any reference to a Mount Rushmore of players from any specific sport.

Should I ever suffer some undetected seizure and use it, please smack me about the head and neck area.

Thank you.

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First thing a grunt does at practice on the Monday after all-star weekend is count Raptors. To make sure everyone got back on their own – no mean feat for players used to travelling in regular season luxury – and I can report everyone somehow got to Washington on time.

The great Mo Pete was famous for getting caught in some kind of “travel issues” and missing the Monday practiced (he’d be fined for his indiscretion) but all of these guys to back.

Kind of telling that the first thing we check is whether grown men could find their way to work on time, isn’t it?

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Now, I know absolutely nothing about ice dancing, and I’m quite proud of that fact in some small way, but no self-serving Canadian could be anything but caught up in the Virtue-Moir stuff of yesterday, right?

I cannot speak to whether the fix was in on the result, I’m not sure anyone can, but I had to chuckle with those who were complaining or lamenting the subjective nature of the judging in the sport.

Of course it is.

The subjective nature of “judging” is everywhere in sports. Isn’t there a level of subjectivity to penalties in the pucks? Or fouls in the basketball? Balls and strikes and safe and out in the baseball?

Subjectivity is, to some degree, prevalent in almost every sport and it’s why the ones with none of it are the absolute best.

Gun goes off, first one to the finish line wins. That’s the best and most pure sporting example I can come up with.

I feel a bit bad for Virtue and Moir that there is even a hint that they were destined to finish second before the event began, if in indeed that is true. It seems that’s endemic to the figure skating and it seems the problems of a decade ago or more have not entirely disappeared.

But to worry about the subjectivity of judging? That’s everywhere in sports and is a huge part of any game.

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